In the wireless environment where multiple devices can request to access the network at the same time, it is necessary for the network to resolve this contention. Currently a random number may be included by the device in its initial request in order to minimize the risk of confusion as to which device is being responded to.
There are, however, a limited number of bits available for the random number reference in the request message, so there exists a significantly high probability that multiple devices use the same random number in the same RACH time slot and that there will be a contention that should be resolved to avoid having multiple devices transmitting on the same dedicated channel. A device which loses a contention resolution (i.e. discovers that it has been transmitting on resources that were not intended for it) may have consumed significant power and incurred delay in transmitting data which was not processed or forwarded by the network. Thus a need exists for an efficient method for contention resolution in terms of time, power consumption and signaling overhead in a wireless network.